Read More

“I thought it would be a missed opportunity not to represent teenagers as they actually are.

“I don’t think it takes anything away from her, either.”

Lady Bird, Gerwig’s debut as a solo director, is a coming-of-age film about a teenage girl growing up in northern California in 2002.

The heroine Christine gives herself the nickname Lady Bird to stand out in a boring town.

The film follows her relationships with mum Marion, played by Laurie Metcalf, her best friend Julie, played by Beanie Feldstein, and her dalliances with two disappointing teenage boys, played by Lucas Hedges and Oscar nominee Timothee Chalamet.

Saoirse Ronan with her on-screen mum, played by Laurie Metcalf (Image: PA)

Ronan, who was born in New York but brought up in Ireland, said: “I’ve watched it twice. The first time I watched it with my best friend – my Julie – and then I watched it with my Marion.

“So even though my relationships, more so with me and my mam, are quite different to her and her mother’s, when they go shopping, or she and Julie are just having a laugh, that’s something we can all relate to.”

Ronan said she was blown away by Gerwig, star of Frances Ha, Mistress America and Greenberg.

She added: “She’s worked with so many other brilliant filmmakers over the years. She’s taken so much from that and learned so much.

“She was just so ready to do this. It kind of felt like this was always something she was supposed to do.

“I was a fan of hers anyway, but to watch her deliver it to the world has been even better.”

Read More

Gerwig, 34, is only the fifth woman director to be nominated for an Oscar. Ronan hopes this year will mark a watershed for female filmmakers.

“There has to be,” she said. “I think with Lady Bird and Wonder Woman (which was directed by Patty Jenkins), which was such a big blockbuster, there will be a change.

“The conversation is too big now to go away. And first and foremost, the best material has to be the stuff that gets made.

“But in order to make it as diverse as possible, women, for example, need to be able to get a meeting with an executive and go, ‘Here’s my piece of work – now decide what you will, whether you think it’s good or not’. There needs to be the option, at least.”

Lady Bird is Ronan’s third Oscar nomination. She’s also up for the best actress award at the Baftas on Sunday.

The star was 13 when she played Briony Tallis in Atonement, a role that bagged her the first nomination.

Saoirse Ronan was first nominated for an Oscar for her role in Atonement (Image: Alex Bailey)

Saoirse Ronan as Mary, Queen of Scots (Image: Photoshot/Avalon.red)

The second came for her 2016 portrayal of an Irish woman who emigrates to New York in the film Brooklyn.

Lady Bird is a quasi-autobiographical telling of Gerwig’s upbringing in Sacremento. The stories, by and about women, feel particularly important to Ronan, given the current climate in Hollywood.

The movie got a rapturous reception at film festivals last year and has a near perfect score on review aggregating website Rotten Tomatoes following its release in the US.

Ronan added: “The type of films that have come out over the last year are a reflection on the massive changes that we’ve all gone through in the last couple of years, politically and otherwise.

Saoirse Ronan with Emory Cohen in Brooklyn (Image: PA)

“The likes of Brexit and Trump have really affected all of us and our creativity.

“I think people were hungry for a film like this. When it came along, the reaction we got to it was sort of like, ‘Why weren’t we doing this all along?’

“It’s because, really, women wouldn’t have got in the door in the past.

“Going, ‘I want to make this film about a teenage girl’ wouldn’t have been plausible.

“But now? This feels like the right time.”

● Lady Bird is released in selected UK cinemas tomorrow and nationwide on February 23.